Briefs

By Jon Van, Chicago-Tribune, Published September 11, 2005

In the annals of trendy corporate job titles, there was chief marketing officer -- created when branding was king. Then, in the Internet age, came the chief technology officer.

Introducing the latest in executive styling: the chief data officer.

"It's an industry first, and I predict within a few years, most companies will have the position of chief data officer," said Usama Fayyad, who wears that hat at Yahoo Inc. "Data needs a voice at the executive table."

The job behind the title is data mining -- the concept of using computers to find information and patterns buried in piles of business data. Those who do this work say they already represent a billion-dollar annual industry, but most mainstream executives still don't really grasp its power and tend to underutilize it.

Here is the rest of the story.